Light conditions change the leader board on the final day

New Zealand OlympicSail

New Zealand's top Olympic class sailors had to pick their way through patches of breeze on the course today. The conditions again testing the precision and patience of the sailors as they worked hard to keep the boat moving in light airs of 4 to 8 knots.

"It was another day of conditions that kept competitors on a knife edge trying to get crucial boat speed in fickle breeze" says Yachting New Zealand's High Performance Manager, Peter Lester. "The light air lake sailing has provided excellent training for those sailors heading to Europe and the Northern Hemisphere regattas over our winter."

Brazilian board sailor Martin Cordioli took out the last race for his first win of the regatta but it was not enough to take the overall win from last night's leader Scott Radley. Radley sailed consistently throughout the regatta to take out the title. In the Women's Boardsailing Sheena McKinnon who led from day two finished first women and fourth overall in today's race to secure first overall for the regatta.

Overnight leader and Sydney 2000 Europe dinghy representative, Sarah Macky could only garb one win today in the light airs with close rival Australian, Jo Dikkenburg winning the other two. Macky had done enough in earlier races to hold on to the overall win ahead of Dikkenburg.

Alistair Gair started today's Laser racing with a buffer of 7 points from Kris Decke and last year's Youth World Champs representative, Andrew Murdoch. Two costly last races placing 9th and 11th left Gair in second behind the winner of the last race and overall winner, Andrew Murdoch.

In the Laser Radial class overnight leader Simon Baker had a forgettable first race finishing last which gave Luke Judge the overall lead going into the second to last race. A final charge from James Bilkey finishing 1st and 2nd in the last two races was not enough and Baker who finished race 10 and 11 ahead of Judge had enough in the bank to take the series.

In the OK Dinghy, Olympic Finn class representative Clifton Webb made a clean sweep of today's three races although it was not enough to claw back overnight leader Nigel Mannering who finished the day with two second places and a third to win the regatta from Russell Wood.

Andrew Brown and Jamie Hunt went into today's racing 12-points ahead of their closest competitor. Their fourth place in the first race of the day secured the regatta for them and allowed them to drop both the last races to take the overall win by 3 points. The Nick Taylor/Jen Cheyne combination battled it out against Matt Davies/Kevin Burrows in the final two races for second and third respectively. In the women's 470 Olympic rep Melinda Henshaw with her new crew member since the Games, Sharon Ferris took out race one. Their closest rival after day three, Shelly Hesson and Linda Dickson finished last in the first race giving the Henshaw/Ferris duo enough of a buffer to take first women overall.